Guild Wars 2

Great joke, right?

Engineers are in a precarious spot. They have great condition damage tank builds, but almost nothing else. S/D is fun, but not competitive, as a GC thief will mop the floor with you if it’s an even match. Bunker condition on the other hand has good damage, good survivability, and few hard counters.

While this is great for engineers, it’s not really good for pvp overall. The condition meta limit builds for all classes, but, if it gets addressed, engineers may fall back into disuse. What would be preferable is now, before large changes are made to rebalance the meta, engineers gained some diversity.

The start would be addressing turrets. They are comparable to necromancer minions and ranger spirits in the manner they are summoned and in that they assist the player in combat. However, they are immobile and cause the engineer to stay in one place to use them, as picking them up incurs a 3/4 cooldown on them. Allowing more mobility with turrets would immediately allow more use of them, and increasing their damage, targeting or survivability could make them able to be used competitively.

Next is our elites. We have one. I’m almost certain that Supply Crate is slotted in 99% of engineers skillbar permanently. Elixir X suffers from RNG and rather bad options for transformation, while Mortar has limited range, poor damage, and causes you to be immobile while using it. There have been many proposed changes to both, personally I would like to see mortar become a turret with greater range and its volley be its overcharge attack, while elixir x could be either a boon button, as that is what the elixir line tends to specialize in, or could give us our own transformation, unique to the engineer.

Lastly, for this post, I’d like to mention our healing abilities. At best, Medkit and Healing turret are it. Elixir H suffers again from the RNG, and, even traited, is less effective then HT for healing, cleansing, and buffing. AED could be great for S/D, but the 1 second cast time, or any cast time for that matter, is too much. It cannot be used when low on health because you die before it can be activated. The toolbelt is also difficult, as it is melee ranged and has a 3/4 second cast time with an after cast of .5 seconds. It takes longer to use than it stuns.

Options for fixing these are bringing HT down a bit, possibly requiring a trait for it to cleanse or removing the water field so that it doesn’t completely outshine its competitors. AED’s cooldown being removed and the toolbelt either becoming a short to mid range attack (300-600) or removing the cast time for the tool belt would make it ideal for S/D. Finally, making elixir h grant only regen or only protection on use and only vigor or only regen on toss would make it much more predictable, and it might find its way back into more use.

PS: Hobosacks. I’m srsly guys. They’re terrible.

TL;DR
Elites, turrets, healing needs fixed. Take away the hobosacks. Suggestions above.

OMG DON’T REMOVE THE WATER FIELD FROM HEALING TURRET!!! You’ll render Engineer even more pointless for group play in WvW.

Creld.8702:

While this is great for engineers, it’s not really good for pvp overall.

I would contend that this is bad for engineers. Right now we get judged on pvp alone for “balance” (another good joke) and engineers in every other game mode get ignored or have their builds stunted because of it.

We are bad vs condis, gadgets and turrets are useless. Rifle/FT are bad in sPvP. There is a lot of work left for the devs on engineer.

Lupanic.6502:

We are bad vs condis, gadgets and turrets are useless. Rifle/FT are bad in sPvP. There is a lot of work left for the devs on engineer.

Rifle and F/t are good only in a decap build. Which does absolutely nothing but decap points…

jportell.2197:

Lupanic.6502:

We are bad vs condis, gadgets and turrets are useless. Rifle/FT are bad in sPvP. There is a lot of work left for the devs on engineer.

Rifle and F/t are good only in a decap build. Which does absolutely nothing but decap points…

One highly gimmicky build that would not work anywhere except spvp conquest mode. Its useless in pve, crap in wvw, and when they finally add new modes to spvp it wouldnt work there either.

And because it works pretty well in this highly specialized role, all Engineers are getting a nerf across all gamemodes. Balancing in this game has sunk to Adam Sandler level of jokes.